Hosts Bridlington Town beaten by high-flying Belper Town in NPL East season finale
Bridlington Town played out their final NPL East game of the season with a 2-0 defeat at home to play-off contenders Belper Town.
Head Coach Mike Thompson made only one change to his starting 11 Bobby Attree replacing Benn Lewis, writes Alexander Fynn.
Brid were slow to get into the match and the visitors had the first opportunity, when Louis Keenan fired in a corner close to the goal-line, which Bolton Makwedze cleared away.
The Seasiders appealed for a handball in the Belper penalty area, but the referee waved it away.
Belper opened the scoring when Ioan Evans headed the ball in from a Jack Broadhead free-kick.
Belper were starting to take charge, when Broadhead whipped in a cross to Kevin Bastos, but his header went straight into Jack Hall’s gloves.
The Seasiders needed to be patient for their first chance, Danny Earl caught Belper on the break, but his cross to Leverett was deflected for a corner.
The visitors started the second half hungry to extend their lead, which they did when substitute Jack Watson made it 2-0 from the edge of the box. Moments later any chance of a comeback by the Seasiders took a huge blow as Simon Heslop was shown his second yellow card.
Belper attacked once more through Jaanai Gordon who fired a low-driven shot from inside the penalty area wide.
Thompson made his first substitution of the game, Nathan Dyer replacing Leverett.
With an instant impact on entering the field Dyer’s free-kick was met by Tom Allan who headed the ball to Earl who saw his shot just wide of the post, as Thompson rang the changes to his side local lad Billy Ripley replaced Michael Coulson. Hall denied a Watson counter-attack for a corner, then Dyer’s shot from an Ahmed Salam pass was scuffed over the bar.
With the game entering its closing stages, Thompson made a double substitution when Ryan Bemrose replaced Sam Kay and Hall off for Ben Voase. When Belper caught the hosts out on the break, a diving Voase sent Gordon’s effort out for a corner.
Thompson said: “It was difficult to replicate the euphoria I think of Monday. We asked pre-game, that we didn’t want to be the team wearing flip flops, we also asked them to put their energy into it to make sure that it was a contest."
Despite this result Brid finish the season 18th in the NPL East.